Insurance Firms Biased

July 24, 1999

Re the July 12 letter writer who gets upset when women's groups demand their health plans cover birth control pills: He writes that if health plans were paying for men's birth control, then there would be a discrimination issue to discuss.

My health plan, and I'm sure others, does pay for men's sterilization, such as a vasectomy, but will not pay toward a woman's sterilization, such as a tubal ligation. These are both birth control procedures. So do not tell women that the insurance industry is not biased.